Youngstown council to vote on plan to create parking lot at Kress site

By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

City council will consider legislation today to allow the board of control to spend up to $250,000 to hire a contractor to turn the former Kress Building site into another downtown parking lot.

The city will use water and wastewater funding for the parking lot construction because the location would be used by water department customers paying their bills at nearby city hall.

The Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp. owned the West Federal Street property — next door to the 7th District Court of Appeals — and had the building demolished with that project finished about a month ago.

As part of a deal, Youngstown paid $500,000 to the CIC for the Kress property with the CIC signing a 20-year lease for $100 annually to operate a parking lot where the Paramount Theatre, also on West Federal Street at the Hazel Street corner, once stood. The money given by the city paid the CIC’s demolition cost for Kress.

The Kress lot isn’t expected to open until next year.

Also today, council will vote on a three-year contract with its 74-member wastewater union.

The union’s contract with the city expired Dec. 31, 2013.

Local 725 previously voted to decertify its affiliation with the United Steelworkers, said Clifton Hardin, union president, who declined further comment Tuesday.

The city has successfully negotiated a number of union contracts in recent months that includes annual raises of 1 percent in 2014, 1.5 percent in 2015, and 1 percent in 2016.

“These are the same percentages as across the board” with the other unions, Mayor John A. McNally said of the wastewater union.

Watewater employees, on average, earn about $45,000 to $52,000 annually in salary.

Several of the other unions have agreed to lift health-care premium caps during the life of new contracts.

The only union to reject that so far is the 138-member International Association of Firefighters Local 312, which complained that the city should have found a less-expensive health-care plan.

The monthly insurance caps are $100 for single coverage and $200 for family coverage.

The city’s health-insurance policy costs $666 a month for single coverage and $1,678 a month for family coverage. City employees pay 10 percent of that amount — $66.60 for single and $167.80 for family a month. The Youngstown insurance plan includes doctor visits, hospitalization, vision and dental coverage, and prescription drugs.